The launch follows on the heels of the SAS Plastic Free Coastlines initiative. Penzance was named the first Plastic Free Coastlines-approved community in the country in December, after meeting the SAS criteria for a town taking steps to cut out single-use plastics.

At the same time, more and more businesses every week are making the commitment by agreeing to stop using throw-away straws and become official refill stations where people can fill their reusable bottles with water, such as Hearts Kitchen cafe in Torpoint.

The damage to wildlife and the beautiful Cornish landscape caused by plastic litter is obvious for all to see, but we've scoured around for the more unusual items that have been found, as welll as those that prove how long the material sticks around to blight the land.

BBC prime-time programme The One Show headed to Penzance recently to visit the plastic free warriors that helped the area gain its SAS staus ahead of anywhere in the whole of the UK.

Since the accolade was announced Penzance has become an inspiration for towns and villages across the country, all eager to get involved with the eco-friendly scheme. One such place is the village of Aberporth, which hoped to become the first town in Wales to achieve Plastic Free status.

To remind you exactly how long plastic products stick around, we thought we would compile a list of some of the weirdest and oldest items to wash up on beaches, and not just plastics.

2. Really old crisp packet

Emily Stevenson, aka the 'Beach Guardian', has posted a video on her own YouTube channel but rather than talking about beauty or fashion, she is calling for the end of single use plastic.

Having moved to Cornwall with her family in 2009, Emily, who is now a marine biology student at Plymouth University, quickly developed an interest in wildlife and the damage caused by plastic.

Emily said she was spending every day of her summer holiday on the beach with her dad collecting rubbish and sharing details about what she had found with people across the world - including a crisp packet with a best before date in 1997, the year she was born.

3. Smartie lids

Michelle Costello, from Illogan, runs Smartie-lids-on-the-Beach.

She said: "I have been cleaning beaches for three years, removing huge amounts of washed up plastic items and rope from our beautiful beaches. Amongst the plastic on the tide line I often find micro-plastic, Lego, soldiers, lost vintage toys and Smarties lids."

(Image: Greg Martin)

Smarties lids are still found on beaches in Cornwall despite not being on sale after the packaging changed in 2005.

Lids can be dated before or after 1990 depending on the branding, after Rowntree were bought by Nestle.

4. Bottle tops

General plastic bottle tops are abundant on our beaches. This was highlighted two years ago when over 65,000 bottle tops were collected in just three months in Cornwall.

In three months over 65,000 plastic bottle tops were collected from Cornish beaches and threaded together to form a chain over 1.1km long (Image: Greg Martin)

The plastic tops were threaded together by marine conservationist Dave Smethurst, to form a chain measuring over 1.1km.

5. Ship's telegraph

(Image: Greg Martin)

A ship’s telegraph once washed up too - it came from The Liberty, a steamship which hit the rocks below Pendeen lighthouse on January 17, 1952.

6. Mermaid's tears

Known by many marine conservations as mermaid’s tears, nurdles are tiny resin pellets that are used in the manufacturing of plastic.

On one day in February last year, about 127,500 nurdles were collected from a 100-metre stretch of Widemouth Bay in Cornwall.

Used in the production of plastic, these resin pellets have become known as mermaid's tears and can be found on most beaches in Cornwall (Image: Greg Martin)

7. Rice cakes

Rice cakes spilled onto Perranporth Beach in their thousands after a cargo ship lost four containers off the Cornish coast.

In February 2017, a massive clean up operation was launched after a cargo ship spilled its content of rice cakes onto the beach.

Four containers were lost overboard when a the ship hit rough seas off the coast of Cornwall; one was filled with Ikea furniture, one contained wine, one housed power tools and one was transporting rice cakes.

The container with the rice cakes broke and the snacks that are individually wrapped in plastic began washing ashore quickly, with Perranporth seeing the brunt of the spillage.

8. Vanish bottles

Hundreds of pink bottles have washed up on a picturesque beach after being swept from a container ship

Vanish bottles washed up at Poldhu in January 2016.

Hundreds of foaming pink plastic bottles washed up on a beach on the Lizard peninsula in February 2016.

The bottles were full and appeared to contain detergent. They left a foaming wake and posed a risk to wildlife.

The bottles were washed up overnight in Poldhu Cove and were spotted by the group Friends of Poldhu.